Friday, March 11, 2011

Follow Friday - Number Nine


It's Friday again, which means it's time for Follow Friday. To join the fun and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:
  1. Follow the Follow My Book Blog Friday Host (Parajunkee) and any one else you want to follow on the list.
  2. Follow the Featured Blogger of the weeks - Ashley of Bookaholic Does Blogging.
  3. Put your Blog name and URL in the Linky thing.
  4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments.
  5. Follow, follow, follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "Hi".
  6. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the love . . . and the followers.
  7. If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!
  8. If you're new to the Follow Friday Hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!
And now for the Follow Friday question of the week: Just like Ashley said (love it) "Ashley the girl . . ."; who are You the Boy/Girl, instead of You the Blogger?

I am Aaron the boy (which seems wrong for a 40+ year old to say). I have two children (a boy and a girl). I had one dog and two cats, but they stayed with my ex-wife when we split up. I am a lawyer and work for the Federal government, the General Services Administration specifically. I specialize in two fields of law most people haven't heard about - Federal fiscal and appropriations law (basically, the law concerning how the federal government spends money), and transportation audits law (which is so obscure I am one of only two lawyers in the entire Federal government who deals with it). I  am a 9th Gup in Chang Moo Kwan Tae Kwon Do working towards getting my 1st Dan, and also a part time student working towards getting a graduate degree in Economics, which means that between studying, reading books to blog about, watching stuff to blog about, and actually blogging, I don't have much free time.

Go to previous Follow Friday: Aces Over Eights
Go to subsequent Follow Friday: Decimeters

Follow Friday     Home

7 comments:

  1. Have a wonderful weekend and a Happy Friday!

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  2. Great answer! I haven't heard of either of those, but it sounds interesting! I'm a new follower. My FF is at Coffee Table Press

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  3. A federal attorney who is a lover of sci fi and fantasy. Great combination! Somehow it seems right...

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  4. Wow! A federal attorney who works with the law concerning how the federal government spends money. What does that entail exactly? Congress approves/doesn't approve spending, so how do you fit into the equation?

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  5. This is maybe the best Follow Friday question I've seen so far. I'm learning so much about so many book bloggers this week!

    (Some surprising things at that!)

    I've got a few surprises in store for you! Follow me back to my blog and learn more about who I am - the man, not the blogger and author.

    Thank God it's Follow Friday!
    Howard Sherman
    http://www.howardsherman.net

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  6. Hopping through. I'm an attorney as well.
    My Hop

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  7. @Jenni: There are a whole host of rules concerning how money can be spent after Congress approves it. The most obvious is when Congress gives instructions on how money is to be spent - via earmarks and other means.

    But even with generall appropriations, there are a myriad of standing laws that constrain how agencies spend the money. What we can spend it on, when we can spend it, what we can do with "expired" money, what we have to do with money we bring in, and on and on and on.

    And this ranges from large scale issues, to the mundane. In 2001, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act to provide funding for states to upgrade their voting technology (mostly installing touch screen voting machines). But the Federal government was operating under a Continuing Resolution, which prohibited us from spending money on new programs. But HAVA had a bunch of deadlines that had to be met too. So we had to figure out what we could spend, and what we couldn't, and how that would impact the reports we were required to submit to Congress, and so on.

    On the mundane end, when a private organization wants to have a working lunch and buy food for everyone who attends, they just reach into pretty cash and pay the bill. But we have a whole bunch of rules concerning when you can and cannot pay for food using government funds, and the rules are so fact specific that it frequently takes a fair amount of analysis to figure out if it is permitted in a given situation or not. (I have given educational presentations outlining the proper uses of government funds to purchase food. My standard presentation is an hour long and I have to skim several topics).

    So, Congress passes appropriations bills, and then we have to figure out how to implement them. The second part is where I come in.

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